WOW thanks flyfisher

I just bought a '99 (113K) to replace my '96 (167K) that I've had 10 years.
Of course the only thing not working was the clock.

Fix worked for me! Comments:

1) I needed to know how to get the dash panel out

2) I'm an electrical engineer so soldering was a no-brainer. I modified your technique to just snip away all the plastic at the connector side so that I could just reach in and solder with the clock plastic halves snapped together and so the pins all held in place and nice aligned.

3) Sigh, my problem wasn't the springs (which looked good and by the way have NICKEL plating (not silver or chrome). In desperation (not wanting to buy a used one on ebay and redo the soldering etc) I measured all the big resistors. They all seemed OK 1st time, 2nd time, but the third measurement of one of them was flaky. (They are 27, 27, 24, 24 ohms in a series string that provide bias and illumination control to the fluorescent display)

4) So I touched up soldering of all the big resistors. They did looked a bit crazed/granular/gray compared to a all the rest of the soldering which was still nice and shiny. SUCCESS!

5) BTW, there should be about 4 ohms between the 2 lower double posts/pins of the display module (otherwise the display' module's filament is burned out and you won't be getting anywhere soon) Also, those 2 lower double posts are pretty soft (I mashed them a little while the clock was face down and I was working on the pins. CAREFUL straightening them, if you crack the seal into the display module you are dead--the gas leaks out. There is a reason these pins are soft)

Congrats on a great post of mucho importance and I hope my little insights have made a contribution...